Overland to Charlotte, NC

[taz_39]

Jameson and I drove past Knoxville and stopped at a hotel for the night, then went our separate ways...he went to Virginia to visit family, and I went to Charlotte.

The first thing I did was to scope out the arena, especially the parking situation (learned my lesson in Nashville). After that I was a bit tired so decided to book a hotel in Huntersville, a suburb of Charlotte where I used to commute for temp music retail work. Treated myself to a Trader Joe's salad and sparkling sake for dinner. A nice relaxing night :)

The next day I took my car for an oil change and since the train wasn't in yet, did a little thrifting and had a nice convo with my aunt over the phone. Around 3pm the train still wasn't in, so I did my grocery shopping and ate lunch. By 5pm I was getting restless, so went to the train yard to wait. The animal cars had recently been detached and were unloaded within an hour or so. After that I expected/hoped that the passenger cars would be spotted.
(note: "spotted" refers to parking the train in its final location in the yard. When a train is "spotted" it means that the passengers may disembark.)

No such luck. Along with several other overland travelers, I waited in my car for another two hours, playing The Room and listening to the radio, at one point going to a nearby gas station for dinner (it was snowing so most restaurants were closed. #thesouth). Finally the passenger cars came to a stop in front of us, and we were able to go home.


Because of the light snow--literally less than an inch--the tow trucks wouldn't come unload the flats. So load in had to be postponed to 6am the following morning. This is what's called a "load 'n go": unloading the flats and setting up everything at the arena with minutes to spare before showtime.

(photo courtesy 'Applesauce')

Our crew is pretty freakin' awesome, so they were finished several hours before showtime.
Since I was not involved in load in, I decided to install some Allure vinyl "wood" flooring that I'd purchased several weeks ago. It cost $40 for a box, and took me about 4 hours to install (due to incompetency). Although it didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped, it's pretty good-looking compared to my gouged, warped and eternally dirty original flooring.

Before:


After:



I made quite a few mistakes, but most of them can be covered up. The biggest mistake was ending up just ONE board short...argh...SO FRUSTRATING. I used smaller pieces to fill that gap, but it doesn't look very good.
Also found out that my closet door is too low to open over this flooring. Sigh.


We only had single shows on Wednesday and Thursday. Both went well :)
The weather was much nicer on Thursday, but I ended up catching up on chores for most of the day...cooking, and applying some silicone caulk to my drippy sink pipes. There is no fire hydrant in this yard, meaning the washers will stay locked this week. I was super backed up on laundry, so spent some time at a nearby laundromat. Afterward I returned to the yard and got some pics of an intermodal crane sitting right outside my door. The tires are taller than me!



On Friday pretty much everyone on the train woke up at 6am to a cold room and the Beep---beep---beeping of the emergency power. We've recently swapped generator cars with the Blue Unit, and their generator is faulty. The joys of life on the rails! Train crew sure has their hands full this year!!!

Unfortunately, the rest of the week was pretty boring for me as far as circus goes. Sometimes that's how it is. Life is good :)

Next stop, Duluth, GA!!

Other stuff:

Congratulations to Mr. Feld, the "hardest working man in showbusiness", on his recent articles in Forbes and MSN Money (article txt is the same, click on either).

Some awesome new footage of the Marvel Live show in production.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

A Day Late!

[leftbase.livejournal.com]

Sorry I missed wishing you a Happy Birthday on the actual day. I hope it was great!

Re: A Day Late!

[taz-39.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :D